[Closed Post: Cinnamon Roll]

[timebethine]

A few days' recovery have left Laertes feeling refreshed enough to return to his baking, although not quite ready to dive into anything particularly complicated. Thus, he abandons the more complex direktørsnegl recipe he'd been meaning to try in favor of perfecting the humble cinnamon roll.

The days are getting shorter--even Laertes can feel it, though his sense of time is poor. He can no longer rely on the sunrise to wake him at a decent hour for baking, and so today he's up a little before the sun, kneading the bready dough by hand rather than using the paddle of the stand mixer in the hopes that the physical exertion will wake him up a little. It's not working particularly well; his eyelids keep drooping.

Comments

[timebethine]

"Ay, I have. He's a fine swordsman--I fear I shall not long have the advantage with the rapier; he hath a natural gift for the blade, and speed enough to match me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I shall have to contrive an excuse to watch him spar," says Susan, thoughtfully, working on creaming the butter and cheese together. "I've only seen him running drills."

It occurs to her, as she speaks, that she seems to have a natural disinclination to talking about her lovers with others. But Lancelot talks about her; he'd said as much. And she really is ever so curious. So she adds, "I imagine sparring would be even more of an appealing sight than the drills."

[timebethine]

"It can be," says Laertes as he takes the bacon out of the pan. "It depends upon how well the fighters are matched, and how well thou knowest the weapon. A match with rapiers can be fought with deadly skill in the space of inches--an entrancing show, if thou art familiar with the blade, but dull entertainment for groundlings at a theatre. The longsword makes better spectacle. It's a hewing weapon, rather than a thrusting weapon; it requires great commitment to the swing."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've watched a fair few duels," says Susan, who would - if she only had the vocabulary for it - admit to having a competency kink. "But never one conducted for fun."

[timebethine]

"If thou wouldst like to watch him thrash me, thou hast only to ask," Laertes laughs.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I rather would," Susan admits, going to measure powdered sugar and cream into the icing bowl. As she seems to focus on ensuring the cups of sugar are appropriately leveled, in a tone that anyone but Ingrid would assume to be one of total, genuine distraction, she adds, "He really is devastatingly handsome, isn't he?"

[timebethine]

"Oh, certainly," Laertes agrees. "Never more so than when he's thrashing me, in fact."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh? Do you enjoy being thrashed?" Susan asks, still the picture of someone focused entirely on the task at hand and very little on the conversation. For effect, she almost immediately makes a pitch-perfect moue of shock at herself, and then lets her gaze fly, startled, to Laertes. "I mean--"

[timebethine]

Laertes senses that he's overcommitted to the play; he retreats. "It's always an honor and a pleasure to cross blades with a skillful swordsman," he says--then immediately realizes that that might come across as innuendo, and retreats again. "I mean to say--I have only the purest of intentions toward thy Lancelot."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Oh, well, that's rather cute of him, isn't it! He sounds ever so flustered. But if he's going to say that his intentions are pure, Susan shan't press - she doesn't want to create an awkward situation for Lancelot. She takes pity on Laertes, mixing in the sugar and adding a splash of cream at a time, stirring thin the icing to pouring consistency. "There's rather a lot more swordplay here than I'm used to seeing," she says, and if it sounds like an accidental double entendre, then so much the better.

[timebethine]

"Lady," says Laertes patiently, although his ears are deep pink at the tips, "thou art toying with me now."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"My only blade is my tongue," Susan says, blithe and unapologetic - and, yes, still a little naughty, but she looks up from the icing, which is nearly ready for when the rolls come out of the oven. The smile she gives him then is likely larger than any he's ever seen her wear, and playful at the edges.

[timebethine]

Laertes can't help laughing, delighted, grinning even wider at seeing her smile. "Then thou art a match for any swordsman here."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I'm glad you see the truth of it," Susan says, primly, and gives the icing another good mix, then lifts the spoon to check its consistency. It flows back into the bowl, and so she sets it to the side, satisfied. And then, in the spirit of the truth, she offers a small correction: "He isn't my Lancelot, you know."

[timebethine]

"No? Forgive me, then. I thought he was thy sweetheart."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, we do have an - accord." He loves me. The thought feels as fragile as a robin's eggshell. "But he's not bound to me."

[timebethine]

"Ah--as with me and Sagramore?" He strives to sound completely neutral. She speaks as though he has some interest in the nature of her accord with Lancelot; he's grown up all his life with courtiers, and he can tell when someone is fishing for social intelligence.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Oh, rather not! Laertes and Sagramore are married, which to Susan sounds like a form of a binding, even if it's not the sort Lancelot spoke of. And in any event, the important thing here is that Lancelot shouldn't have to be bound to anyone ever again, no matter how much he insists it was his will, before. "Yes, something like that."

[timebethine]

"I see." His egg has gone from over easy to over medium; he scrapes it up from the pan and deposits it on the plate. "I know not what he's told thee--none of it is mine to tell--but I will be plain with thee on this. I will not importune him, nor give him the least cause to feel that my friendship with him is conditioned upon ... upon his acquiescence. He deserves better than that."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

From this, Susan gleans that Lancelot has told Laertes at least a little of his life in Camelot, and that if Lancelot ever decides Laertes seems more than just 'handsome' to him, it will be on him to make the first move. She takes out a second bowl to start the vanilla icing. This one, of course, is much easier: sugar, vanilla, cream. She puts the sugar in the bowl, and then the vanilla, and then drizzles in the first splash of cream, stirring carefully so that the sugar doesn't blow out in a great cloud. This time she focuses on the actions of mixing the icing not to feign distraction, but rather to soften the fierceness of the flood of jumbled nameless feelings that suffuse her. "You're a good friend."

[timebethine]

"I hope that I can be. He deserves a good friend."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He does." Oh, there's some fierceness that hasn't softened.

[timebethine]

"Thou art that friend to him," says Laertes--not a question, but something he firmly believes.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, I know I am," says Susan, matter-of-fact but not quite as businesslike as she usually gets. "He's my dearest friend here." Of course she'll do her best to be good to him. "He deserves many good friends."

[timebethine]

"As good to him as thou art?"